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West Midlands Housing Association Partnership formed

Monday, 22 August 2016

Housing associations from across the West Midlands have formed a new partnership to engage and support the new devolved authority to deliver thousands of new homes.

The West Midlands Housing Association Partnership will provide a single voice to help the West Midlands Combined Authority deliver its social and economic aims, through housing and related activities, such as employment and health.

The partnership represents housing associations with a total of 120,000 homes in the core authority area, with 6,630 homes built by associations in the region and beyond last year. Together these organisations add £600m to the regional economy each year and employ 18,500 people.

The partnership was formally agreed last week, with the support of the National Housing Federation, and its core members are:

WM Housing Group

Orbit

Midland Heart

Walsall Housing Group

Bromford

Accord

Wrekin Housing Trust

Pioneer Group

Black Country Housing Group

Sanctuary

Longhurst Group

Waterloo Housing Group

The partnership is aiming for involvement of all HAs in the region.

Partnership Chair, Kevin Rodgers, Chief Executive of WM Group, said: “We have a powerful and unprecedented commitment to collectively engage the new authority in discussion about how we can help inform and then deliver its ambitions for housing in the region.

“Together we have more than a 60 billion pounds of capacity, and we want to deploy as much of that as possible in the region to deliver the high quality homes the West Midlands needs, and to create vital jobs and growth. We also want to support wider agendas around health, skills, employment and fuel poverty.

“In a relatively short space of time, we have come together to respond to this hugely exciting opportunity for the West Midlands region. We now want to crack on and make housing happen at a scale and pace that we have not seen since the post-war housing heyday.”

Councillor Bob Sleigh, Chair of the West Midlands Combined Authority, said : “It is great to see housing associations come together in partnership in a way that will truly support the work of the newly created West Midlands Combined Authority.”

David Orr, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation, offered his support for the Partnership: “It is fantastic to see housing associations in the West Midlands proactively engaging with the new combined authority. Housing associations are key partners in the negotiation and delivery of bespoke devolution deals, and can help deliver local solutions to the housing crisis in the West Midlands.”